The book provides young Spanish readers with an introduction to the Latin American independence movement. The purpose of the author is to acquaint the adolescent with the struggles for liberty and independence shared by the twenty-one republics of the New World in hope that familiarity with the great deeds of the revolutionary epoch will contribute to greater understanding and cooperation among the Latin American people in the years ahead. The book is written in relatively easy Spanish and the material presented would appeal to students of the junior high level in the United States. The study contains nothing significant for the historian or college student other than serving as an example of the type of grade school history available for Ecuadorian school children. The author’s training, position, and interests appear to be the equivalent of those active in American Schools of Education.
Basically, the book contains brief individual treatment, by country, of the independence movements in the New World. The material has been gleaned from a few secondary sources listed in the back of the book. Each chapter treats the principal events culminating in independence in a particular country, occasionally including a thumbnail sketch of a national hero and perhaps the text of some appropriate manifesto or act, concluding with words to that nation’s anthem. A short introduction rambles through the glories of the Spanish discoveries and conquests, followed by a simplistic synopsis of the failures of the Spanish monarchy in the colonial period. Tacked on as concluding chapters appear some sixty-five pages dealing with the United Nations, the O.A.S., and an unconnected series of references to Ecuadorian history. The whole book tends to have a sophomoric quality in organization and presentation. The chief concession to coherence is an underlying passion for liberty and justice and a desire to implant these ideas in the hearts of those who will be facing the multitude of tomorrow’s problems.
